Let’s get right to the point, people: dinner at Typhoon on Valentine’s Day was probably the best dinner I’ve ever had in my life. I’m struggling to think of anything that continued to amaze me like the 15 items we ate Saturday. Oh, and the endless supply of great wine. I’ll give you all the details I can remember in a minute…

Saturday started with my headache being horrible and me feeling quite icky from it. I got up thinking I may go to pilates, but just didn’t feel well enough by the time 9:30 rolled around. I made coffee, and ate my traditional oats; this was the last of the Barney Butter.

I was feelin’ better after breakfast, but still not quite right. I slept a little on the couch; felt so good 🙂

Lunch was two eggs scrambled (accidentally dropped in the 2nd yolk!) in a whole wheat tortilla with a wedge of LCL. I also had my apple from Friday that I never ate. Damn pithy Jonagolds got the best of me last week.

The afternoon rolled around and Chris and I mosied to the gym. The basketball backboard wasn’t quite fixed yet, but they opened up the court and guys were playing half court games. They got booted at 3pm, tho, for the boot camp class, no pun intended. 😦 That cut my cardio shorter than I’d hoped.

After getting home I pampered myself a little by painting my toenails. Sounds rather ordinary, but I haven’t done this in MONTHS. Last time my little piggies were painted was in September if you can believe it!

Now comes the exciting part…after getting all gussied up Chris and I arrived at Typhoon around 7 for our special group dinner, and so the ecstasy began! Wine abounded–no corkage fee and lots of people in the wine industry equals tons of great wine! We brought Kim Crawford 2007 Sauvingnon Blanc, and we also consumed Willakenzie 2007 Pinot Gris, Vidon 2007 Pinot Noir (excellent for such a young wine!!), and some Mumm Napa sparkling white.

First dish was some sort of mini roll served in a wine glass with a sweet sauce. No idea what was in here, but it was yummy and hot!

Here we paused for a little gift bag and drawing from our lovely hosts, Eric and Bennie. We got a bag of Hershey kisses, and some of us got a number for drawing prizes. Chris and I got to choose between wine, a gift card to Red Robin, and a gift card back to Typhoon…Chris chose Typhoon! Perfect for me any day!

Next was where the mind was blown!! Bo Kline’s clam chowder with lemongrass. Holy. Moley. I know it sounds odd, but if you ever get a chance to visit a Typhoon you MUST try this soup. Even if you don’t like chowder or lemongrass, somehow I think you will like love this. I really had to resist eating more than a cup of it.

Up next was a cascading delivery of incredibly yumminess in the form of like 8 dinner entrees and sides. Forgive me I do not know the names of them all! Flaming fish, pineapple curry, green beans, beef with heavenly sauce and peanuts, drunken noodles, fried rice, crab pad thai, and another I can’t remember at this point! Everything was soooooooooo gooooooood. This really was heaven on a plate. I had a little more of the curry since that’s my 2nd love…

I ate plenty, and was full, but thankfully not gut-bustingly-uncomfortably full. Dessert was really unexciting if you ask me, probably a good thing since dinner was so fabulous. It was sticky rice and a custard; I had a few bites, but no need to post the pic since it wasn’t so pretty.

After dinner we went to a little bar called Friends in Beaverton, and proceeded to listen to and do some karaoke and drinking. I didn’t do either, but had fun. We left around 1am, and I didn’t end up getting in bed until about 1:45. :sleepy:

Sunday

I was dead tired in the morning, but still got up for yoga 🙂 My breakfast was a cereal mess…inspired by all you fabu bloggers out there who display these frequently. Barbara’s Shredded Oats, Fred Meyer Shredded Wheat, and chai spice cereal I can’t remember the name of now. It was tasty!

Yoga was great today, and since I knew I was heading back to the gym later with Chris I didn’t do anything else after class. In between gym sessions I did a little cleaning and ate lunch. A rather boring experience… one scrambled egg on a toast butt with 1/2 a wedge LCL, and 1/2 cup lowfat cottage cheese. Sorely lacking in fresh fruit or veg, right?

Sometime afterward we went to the gym around 3, and I started off with cardio so I could get in my full 45 minutes to an hour. I did 35 minutes of fast intervals on the stair mill, and then about 10 minutes on the elliptical. Chris got booted from the basketball court again, but for volleyball this time. He was kind enough to let me do an ab workout before leaving, though. This time I did the fitnessmagazine.com Your Flat-Abs Handbook, and it was great! Lots of stuff for the obliques, and it seemed to be quite effective.

Once home I had a choc. protein shake, and we did some yard work. I raked around the barkdust to prevent Lily’s footsies from being so messy when she plays catch. She has done a number on the lawn, too, so I staked & twined off an area in the hopes that it will recover a bit.

You won’t believe it, but we went to Mexican for dinner again. That is like 6 nights in a row we ate out 😦 Bad bad bad bad bad! I tried to control myself and didn’t have a Casuela, and only had one chicken taco and chips & salsa. I watched Chris eat a cheeseburger with a fried egg jalapenos, and fries on the side; I almost asked him for a taste at one point it looked so good.

After dinner came shopping at PetSmart and Fred Meyer. Nothing too exciting here. Lily had fun sniffing around at PetSmart, and nearly pulled me over she’s so strong!

Once home I unpacked everything and dove into the work recyling. It took me over an hour to sort out, wash, and put away all the stuff! That was two weeks’ worth of recycling, and really wasn’t too bad to deal with.

Afterward I rewarded myself with some tasty fruit: a beautiful Fuji, eaten European style with a knife. Mmmmmm….. I’m so glad to have crisp, yummy apples again 🙂

Chris later attacked my Maranatha with some Ritz, and I couldn’t forego that a.b. action, so I had one cracker with probably 1/2 a tbsp of a.b. Very good indeed!

I was going to post this last night (Sunday), but Chris and I kind of got into a tiff and I had to hold off. Thanks for checking back and reading, though! I’ll be posting about today (Monday) shortly…. stay tuned.

Tonight I did #2 and the first week’s plan for #1. I am amazed that the moves look easy but are pretty challenging, and left me sweating a bit 🙂 I felt like a total dork at first busting out the routines, but then got the hang of things. I’m desperate to blast off some calories and flab before leaving for my vacation, so I hope this change of pace kicks my ass into better shape a little faster. I figured that I should be down about another few pounds by now since I’m three months in to working out and eating less…just more motivation to step it up a bit for the next 5 weeks.

Have any of you done these types of workouts (i.e. 4 wk program/fitness magazine programs) and had good results?? I’d really like to hear your take on them, so please de-lurk and let me know!

The Day’s Eats and Activities

Erin asked a question today about what we do first thing in the morning…today was really bad as I hit the snooze button for like an hour before getting up!!! And I still wanted to go back to bed after that.

Since I got a late start I ate breakfast at home again and made coffee. Nummy steel cut oats, raisins, Barney Butter, cinnamon, almond milk, water.

I was busy at work and didn’t end up eating until lunch until about 2. My wrap was a little different today, and yummy! Whole wheat tortilla, dried cranberry crusted goat cheese, peppered turkey, romaine. My Jonagold was pithy again 😦 At least the Kashi TLC were tasty! I ran out of turkey and romaine so my wrap was a little empty 😦

After busting my ass to get ready for my 4pm meeting I was stood up 😦 Hey, it happens here and there…People get busy and forget about meetings sometimes, esp. when they’re scheduled a quarter in advance.

I guess Chris thought I agreed to go to Mexican again tonight, as he came in to my office around 5 and started speaking of such things. Say what? I thought he was crazy, but whatever, I was a kind partner and agreed to go as usual.

We went to Si Senor, where I had a massive Diet Coke, chips & salsa, and one chicken taco. Simple, tasty, perfect portion size. ‘Nuf said.

That’s Chris’ huge margarita in the background.

I hit up the gym around 8 and busted out the aforementioned workout, plus a 3-way cardio sesh of 15 minutes of intervals on each the stair mill, elliptical, and treadmill. I was watching 30 Rock while on the treadmill and laughed out loud a few times…it was so funny! I don’t watch it that often and was totally amused.

Once home afterward a little shaky-poo was calling my name…

The all-star lineup, posing next to the finished product. I used 1 cup almond milk, 3+ TBSP shake mix, ~1/2 TBSP Maranatha, and 1/2 a nanner. SO yummy and satisfying!!! BTW, I love my Braun hand blender and it’s multiple attachments. It is powerful and really easy to use, and all the attachments can go right in the dishwasher.

Guess what?! It’s after midnight, so technically that means it is Friday!!! Yippee! This week has gone by pretty slowly; not bad really, just annoying.

What are you all doing for Valentine’s Day? V-Day is a tough one…so many people get caught up in the perfect gift or the perfect dinner… I like to just focus on those I love 🙂 Chris and I are joining a group of mostly strangers at Typhoon for a multi-course meal. I’m totally hoping it is just 8 courses of curry and not too much seafood 🙂 I need to get me some curry on a more regular basis!!

I’m down to the bottom of the Barney Butter jar and figured I should pick up some new almond butter soon, so I grabbed a jar of Maranatha crunchy today at Freddy’s. Erin loves Maranatha, and I’ve only ever tried Barney Butter and store ground stuff, so I thought I’d do a taste test and review the two brands. There were like 5 kinds of Maranatha…raw, crunchy, creamy, roasted, etc. I went with the No Stir Crunchy, which is roasted.

Wow, what a difference between the two! I now understand why Erin was like “BB ain’t all that” or something along those lines. Maranatha is the polite, well-behaved, refined version of almond butter (think classical music), and Barney Butter is the all-out, in-your-face-roasted-taste, rock star opposite (think heavy-metal). The flavor nuances of Maranatha are much more pronounced than the rather one-note Barney Butter.

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I really like Barney Butter, especially the huge chunks of almonds in it 🙂 However, I do like the smooth, more complex flavors of Maranatha. If you’re looking for something unlike peanut butter definitely give Maranatha a try. Barney Butter really does taste like peanut butter and have the same texture, whereas Maranatha is quite different. I also like that Maranatha doesn’t seem as oily at BB, nor as sticky on the tongue. Here’s the nutrition comparison:

More power to you in your almond butter journeys!

Back to the normal blog scene for me: daily eats. This weekend has felt like a nosh-fest 😦 I ate too much, drank too much, and gave in to cravings more than I have for awhile.

Saturday breakfast: shredded wheat with 1/2 a nana and almond milk.

Chris and I took his car out to wine country for an event at WillaKenzie. It was a gorgeous day and riding with the top down was really fun. We stopped at his favorite sandwich place, Phil’s, for lunch. Here’s where it went downhill… this beauty is a Fajita sandwich.

We then went to WillaKenzie and met some of Chris’ clients for the annual Valentine’s tasting and wine release. First we tasted a Pinot Gris (I skipped the tuna food pairing); second came a Pinot Meunier with a TJ’s French truffle. Ooh baby, they are soooooo good!

I grabbed the double truffle 🙂

Next up was the Clonale 113, served with a civet of wild boar and chickpeas (I abstained but photographed). I liked this wine a lot.

We were a bit warm, so we headed down to the patio for some cool air. Such a beautiful day and a beautiful view!

Back inside for more wine… up next was Clonale 114, served with a pate of some sort on toast (I abstained). We went on a tour at 3, and tasted the Plaisir a Trois while listening to Thibaud, the winemaker, discuss the wines, winemaking, cellaring, and more. Each year WillaKenzie orders about 200 new barrels at a cost of $900k! Holy shit, I had no idea barrels were that expensive. Well worth it to impart good flavor on the wines, though.

After tasting this and a barrel sample of the Wasenwail clone, we headed back upstairs for the final tasting and food pairing: Late Harvest Pinot Gris with a Rogue River blue cheese terrine with walnuts and apple. Holy. Moley. This was an insane flavor combination that I just had to have again!!! I don’t normally go for the funky cheeses, but this was divinely prepared and paired ecstasy on the tongue.

We hit up a few of the stations again (truffles!), and called it a day around 4:30 or so. Even though the sun was low and it was cold, we drove back with the top down again and the heat blasting. It really was a great drive in beautiful country 🙂

On the way home Chris and I talked ourselves into going to Mexican for dinner at Fajitas (yeah, that took a lot of convincing–not). I can’t believe I had like half of a Casuela 😦 I ate one tortilla full of Carnitas de pollo, but couldn’t stop picking at the plate afterwards.

After dinner I developed a nasty headache. While wine tasting I had only one glass of wine really, but the variety of wines and timing of drinking kinda screwed me up I think. Allergies didn’t help either…

Eventually I got a craving for something, and ate a few bricks of Cadbury milk chocolate with almonds.

I passed out on the couch at 10 and went to bed around 11.

Sunday

Getting up this morning was hard, mostly b/c I still had that damn headache. What is it with me and headaches lately? Yoga sounded like a good idea, though, so I pulled my ass outta bed and got ready.

Breakfast was shredded wheat with sliced strawberries and almond milk, and coffee with Silk vanilla creamer. The cereal combo was a bit sour from the not-so-tasty strawberries…perhaps I should invest in some Stevia.

Yoga was good, but for being next to a really loud breather. Same thing in Pilates yesterday. Totally drives me crazy and I really can’t seem to zone it out. It’s not Lamaze class, people!

After class I came home and determined I could not take the disgusting kitchen that had developed: clean dishwasher needing unloading, sink and counter full of dirty dishes, etc. Cleaning felt good and wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Lunch time came around and wasn’t sure what to eat…protein shake with other stuff? Egg? Tortilla? I settled on one egg and one egg white scrambled, put in a tortilla with 1/2 a wedge LCL. Nummy. I also had half of a Jonagold, and some Kashi Fire Roasted Veggie crackers with the other half of my LCL wedge.

After my grocery shopping I did the almond butter taste test as a snack. I tell ya, it really is amazing how varied the same product can be. It is fun to try the various kinds, tho.

Dinner time rolled around and I got to preparing ground beef soft tacos. I sauteed the beef with onion, chile powder, Nature’s Seasons, Tabasco, salsa, and BBQ seasoning. For taco fillers I had a little homemade guac, reduced fat sour cream, more salsa, a little medium cheddar, romaine, and pickled jalapenos. Whoa, mama, those jalapenos were spiiiiiiiiiicy! 🙂

I totally shouldn’t have, but I ate a second one 😐 Oy vey.

After a bit Chris started saying he wishes he could have a Casuela at Fajitas, to which I responded he was crazy and that I didn’t feel like going out, esp. just for a drink. After about an hour of his pouting in a cute way I somehow gave in and we went for bebidas.

Remember those jeans that I fit into Friday? Well, they felt a bit tighter tonight. Amazing how the body can change in a few days.

Of course they brought us chips, and I couldn’t resist having a few. Noe, our waiter, also brought us La Casa! It was sooooooooooooo tasty, and I’m sure it had like 400 cals. Oops! There goes the day’s health watch…

So here we are, at the end of a weekend that disappeared before I knew it, and it is already after 11. Boo. Can we rewind the clocks a day or two?

Did you all have a good weekend? I hope so! I’m off to take Lily outside one more time and hit the hay. Oyasuminasai (good night in Japanese) :Z

Today was pretty busy and went by really quickly. But all in all, it was good and much better than yesterday 🙂

I woke up around 8 and finally got up at 8:30. I had my oats while making lunch for Chris and I, and was kind of sad to wolf them down in between tasks. I like the nut butter in my oats, but I may have to do something a bit different to kick things up. I saw Erin got some figs, and remembered that I really liked dried figs in my oatmeal. Mental note to get figs when I run out of raisins…

I’m like Andrea and prefer my oats on the dry side, and these were a tad too mushy for me since I added some water when they were done.

My morning was a bit frustrating b/c of client issues and computer issues, but I think I started making some progress on the computer front. Eventually I ate lunch with Chris around 12:30, but wasn’t that hungry. My wrap was slightly different today. I used a tortilla instead of a Flatout b/c I forgot Flatouts until I was clear on the other side of the store, and the tortillas were right in front of me. They are Mission Life Balance Whole Wheat and seemed pretty good.

Back to work and solving financial problems. In my line of work what seems like the smaller problems end up taking the most time and energy. For example, helping someone develop and implement a budget and reduce spending is really hard, but building an investment portfolio and doing their retirement plan is somewhat easy. Seems backward, but rings true. i had some lemon ginger tea while I crunched #s.

Before I knew it 3:30 rolled around and I knew I should eat something before my two back to back meetings. I bought a Kashi Go Lean Roll the other day, and tried it out. It was caramel nut something flavored, and not that impressive. The sticky texture made it hard to eat, and the flavor was a little too protein-bar-y. But, with lots of protein and fiber it held me over until after 7, so no gripes there.

I had the other half of my apple while heading out of the office:

Because of our long day and hunger Chris and I decided to go to Si Senor for dinner instead of cook at home. I had chips & salsa, and 1 1/2 tacos (one chicken, 1/2 beef). I forgot the camera in the car and was too lazy to go get it. After we ate we picked up the LB at my mom’s house and went home. I knew I had to go work out since tomorrow would probably not work out (no pun intended ;)), so I headed off to the gym at nearly 10.

I set into a leg workout, did some abs, and then wrapped up with a sweaty 15 minutes on the stair mill. I am so happy that spending time on the stair mill is becoming easier; I used to barely last 10 minutes, and lately 15-30 minutes haven’t been too tough. Andrea, thanks for the idea to do intervals!! It totally makes the time go by and is easier mentally than doing the same speed the whole time.

I got home around 11:15 and now it is after 12:30! I had better go since I have to be up earlier tomorrow. As you know, I have been SO bad about going to bed at a decent hour for the last two weeks. I just can’t say no! At least the sleep I’ve gotten has been better 🙂 Nighty, night, y’all!

Woo hoo, I got some sleep last night! I set the alarm for 8 so I could get up, eat, all that jazz, before yoga, but it was so hard to get out of bed. I really wanted to sleep in all morning, but finally dragged my ass out of bed at 8:45.

Coffee, oatmeal, and a little blogging followed. I was really slow and clumsy for a little while, but eventually I perked up and was glad I got up instead of sleeping more.

Around 9:40 I left for yoga, and arrived to find the studio already open (no class beforehand) and the room really full already. Wowza, that was one full class today. We had to stagger and get pretty close, and the body heat was pretty intense. It was a good class, tho!! Loved it!! I was totally expecting to suck but actually did rather well and felt great. So great, in fact that I did a half hour of intervals on the stair mill afterward. Yay!

I ran to Costco afterward to pick up some laundry detergent, and ended up coming home with a stick vacuum, too!! I’ve had my eye on the Electrolux Ergorapido for a long time now, and decided that having easily cleaned floors was worth the $90. I hate sweeping with a passion, and I hate getting out the big vacuum to do the hard floors even more. It is charging now and tomorrow I should be able to report on how the initial use goes.

When I got home I was famished and really wanted something yummy and a little different. I opted for a spinach salad with turkey, egg white, apple, shaved Parmesan, red wine vinegar, and black pepper. The spinach was tough 😦 So sad! It is a fresh bag with a date 1 week from now and I’m so upset it is not tender. Boo. I had the rest of the Pink Lady apple and some cottage cheese on the side.

I began cleaning and organizing, and a few hours later I was hungry again, so I had some yogurt with sliced almonds and 1/2 a banana, and a grapefruit. Yummy! The grapefruit was really ruby red and juicy, and although it was a tad bitter I did not add sugar and loved it as it was 😉

More cleaning and organizing, a shower (yes, finally, ew) later and we headed out for a roundabout of tasks. I dropped Chris off at the gym and went to Goodwill to donate a whole trunk full of stuff. Whew, that felt good to finally clear it out and help others in the process. Then I ventured inside the store (an outlet store) and was almost horrified at first. Imagine diving in giant bins of secondhand goods in a big open, stinky warehouse. Wow. It was intense. I looked at some of the clothes, furniture, etc, and decided to head out without getting anything. I think I’ll stick to the regular retail-style thrift store in the future.

After the store and picking up Chris we headed to dinner at Fajitas. My mom met us there. I had part of a Casuela (super boozy tonight! :/), chips and salsa, and a ground beef taco. I know I should have had chicken, but the beef sounded tastier.

And, of course, I had La Casa to wrap things up. This is such a sinful mix…I asked again what is in it and found out it is made with 1/2 & 1/2, not milk! Eeeek. So, all in all it is 1/2 & 1/2, ice cream, and Bailey’s blended with a nice dash of cinnamon on top. I drank the whole thing b/c the convo was a bit stressful.

I became really tired at dinner and coupled with the convo that put me in a funk. After I got home I went into a tissy and began ripping nails out of the walls and hanging art that has been sitting on the floor in my spare bedroom for far too long. I’ve lived in this house for 4 years, and only had a few things on the wall. Most of our walls were riddled with nails that Chris’ ex put everywhere, and they were all way too high for enjoying any art. I hope Chris likes the new configuration…he’s out right now. He was resistant to me taking down his old posters and hanging real art, but I think he’ll either like it or just deal with it. It has really bothered me that for 4 years I haven’t had hardly any of my art hanging. When my mom moved this summer I took a smattering of her art that I like, and that is most of what I hung up.

BTW, I say “my spare bedroom” b/c we have a 3 bd. house, and one of the bd’s is my closet; I call it my bedroom. Now if I can just clean out the rest of the extra shit that has accumulated in there…

Well, it is almost 11:30 and I’m ready for bed. I hope you all had a nice weekend and are ready for a great week ahead!! I’m glad I had a productive Sunday, and look forward to enjoying my clean house and my new vacuum all week. Cheers 🙂

All of a sudden I’m not feeling so hot. I think I’m hungry, tired, and have allergies (my Christmas tree is still up and drying out!)

Today was punctuated with periods of lots of talking, and in between Iwas pretty much silent for a few hours. Some days are weird like that, you know?

I woke up and realized there was no oatmeal waiting for me, so I had a bowl of Quaker Oatmeal Squares, almond milk, a sliced banana, and a sprinkle of cinnamon for breakfast while making today’s lunch. Yummy, but I wish I had more time to eat it slowly rather than wolf it down.

The morning went rather quickly, and Chris had a long meeting so I held off on eating until about 1. He was too busy to eat (he’s so bad!), so I ate at my desk while I read blogs.

Flatout sundried tomato with 1/2 a wedge of LCL, two slices of turkey, spinach, rainbow slaw, and ground pepper; small Fuji apple; handful of Stacy’s Pita Chips. Thanks for the comments on how my wraps look! I like seeing the cross section of them when I cut them in half 🙂 Flatouts are pretty easy to roll b/c they’re stretchy and soft; I usually have to be careful not to rip tortillas.

Hmmm….I was mostly silent for the afternoon working on various stuff, including my shitty work computer virus issue, and blogging here and there. I had peach black tea while I was working.

I really need to take an insulated mug to work for my afternoon tea. When I need to use a cup like this I reuse it as long as possible without it seeming gross. Cups like this aren’t recyclable b/c of the plasticized liner 😦

Suddenly it was after 4 and I was starving, so I had about 1/2 a cup of this lf/ff cottage cheese mix. That’s a Doggie Dooley in the background! It is basically a mini septic tank for your dog’s waste. I’m thinking of getting it so I don’t have to throw away Lily’s poo; with the help of environmentally friendly enzymes & water the poo will break down and seep into the ground. Only thing is I have a ton of clay in my backyard, so I’ll have to search for a good place to put it.

Then I wanted something sweet, so I had two pieces of taffy: peppermint and vanilla. Mmmmmmm.

We left around 5:30, and Chris mentioned going to Fajitas for dinner. I figured I wouldn’t drink and I would get just a taco, so that was fine by me. Once there our favorite waiter, Pedro, just brought us two Casuelas since that’s what we always order. What was I gonna do? Refuse it? So I had part of it, one beef taco, and one chicken taco. And the obligatory chips and salsa beforehand, of course.

I traded some of the cheese on these with Chris for some of his jalapenos 🙂

I think I reached my limit about half way through this, so Chris got the other half.

Once home I changed right away and headed to the gym for a leg workout and cardio. It was great! I pumped the Limp Bizkit again and it was great. I was annoyed a few times by stupid stuff, though, and really did want to break stuff here and there. The weight plates were totally disorganized and all over the place, and so many people were on their damn phones texting and just sitting on machines not doing anything. Seriously. It was a texting convention. Were they all texting each other in a big conspiracy to take up space in the gym??? At least they didn’t get in my way too much.

Cardio was a mix of 20 minutes of intervals on the stairmill followed by 20 minutes of walking on an inclined treadmill. Sweaty goodness!

I was getting toooooooo hungry a few minutes ago, so I had a few pcs. of TJ’s Cinnamon Flatbread. It’s a little stale but still good 🙂

I can’t believe how quickly my dishes piled up the last two days. Ick. I had to take care of that shit when I got home, and now my blogging adventure has me going to bed a tad late (nearly midnight). I must get more sleep tonight.

Take a look to the right under “pages” up at the top o’ the page. I’ll be adding new pages in The Three R’s as I learn more about waste, recycling, reducing, reusing, etcetera, in my course. I hope you’ll learn a lot, too, and share your knowledge with those around you 🙂 Nothing there now but a test page, but I’ll try to add a new page each week. Let me know if there’s anything in particular you want to know about or need help with!

BTW, I added some new links today: TerraCycle, a link to stop the weekly junk mail coupons in your mail, and a link to The Daily Plate. Check them out if you have a second!

In parting, a picture of Chris with Lily Bird on the couch next to him. Awwwwww 🙂

Today wasn’t so bad, but started out kinda crappy and didn’t end up a whole lot better. Personal stuff, business stuff, and client goings on mostly ended up being slightly negative today. Thankfully nothing huge or life changing, so let’s move on…

Ah, breakfast oats are soothing and oh so good. I ran out of Bob’s Red Mill steel cut oats and am back to Freddy’s bulk. Not sure which I like more. Bob’s are bigger and chewier, but they don’t absorb as much liquid as the bulk oats. Perhaps I’ll just switch back and forth over time for a little variety here and there.

Steel cut oats, almond milk, water, raisins, Barney Butter, and cinnamon. I ate these at home while getting ready this morning since we were running a tad on the later side.

I’ve just about killed my first jar of Barney Butter from Christmas. Wowza. I like it, but must admit I haven’t had many other nut butters and I am no expert. I may have to make a special trip to Whole Foods or Trader Joes once I kill the 2nd jar.

When I booted my computer at work this morning here’s what I was greeted with:

Say what?! Aw, shit, more computer crap? I called the Technology Help Desk as the message suggested, and they only told me to keep changes. Say what again? You want me to keep possibly viral changes? Shit again. I did and the computer seemed to work fine until I got my McAfee scan going, when it zonked out, lost the task bar, and froze. After a reboot and successful scan I think I got all the junk off of it. Technology is such a pain in the ass. But it makes my life easier and I love blogging so I ain’t gonna swear it off or anything like that 😉

Chris and I had a lunch appt that boged out this morning, so we ended up going to Red Robin for lunch (danger!!), but only on the condition that we get a teriyaki chicken burger since we always split something and I didn’t want a calorie overload.

I think I got the bigger half, and, yes, I did dip the fries in a little bit of ranch. Since I don’t like mayo at least I saved a few calories by leaving that off. I used The Daily Plate to figure out the nutritional content, and it is estimated to be about 480 calories plus the ranch. Not too bad.

The afternoon had a high point with a great client conversation, and then a lower point with a shitty client conversation–basement flooded and $20k+ of damage not covered by insurance. For anyone out there who has a sump pump or high ground water, just get flood insurance. Homeowners insurance won’t cover ground water seeping into a house, so you best not find that out when something shitty has already happened.

I was hungry around 4pm and had a snack of cottage cheese and a small banana. I also had tea during the afternoon.

Around 5:30 we headed out to Si Senor, and I forgot to take my camera into the restaurant. I thought I may be working out later, so I had a big Diet Coke (24 oz!). I wanted to switch up the menu a bit, so I had two crunchy tacos: one chicken and one picadillo. I also had chips and salsa, of course.

[Imagine two cute crunchy tacos with meat, lettuce, and a tiny bit of cheese here. Then imagine me adding pickled jalapenos to them for some spice ;)]

Chris and I watched the new Nip/Tuck on FX at 8 (shows come on at east coast time on DirecTV), and man, it was craaaaaaaaaaaazy good!! I haven’t watched it much for a few years, and I miss it. I think I may have to get the DVDs to catch up.

Wow, where does the time go?! It is almost 11 and I need to go to bed. I haven’t gotten much good sleep for about 5 nights and I miss it. I also ran out of my cortisol manager supplement that helps me sleep, so that ain’t helpin’ my cause.

I was going to workout tonight, but my body is sore all over (in a good way) and my knees hurt a bit (in a bad way). As much as I burn to get healthier, I don’t want to overdo it and set myself back further. I can’t workout tomorrow night b/c of my first Master Recycler course, but I can still get in 4 or 5 days of workouts this week so skipping tonight isn’t that bad.

On another note, I’m totally aching to start using my kitchen scale!!! My dad got me a great spring scale that can do liquid or dry foods and came with a pour bowl, but I know Chris’ mom also got me a nice digital one. We are having Christmas with Chris’ parents on Monday, so I have to wait until then to see which one I like more. Today I thought about it and since the digital one uses batteries it is not as environmentally friendly as the spring one, but reading and using the digital one may be easier. What to do?! Sheesh, the hard decisions I’m faced with, eh? Vote and let me know what you’d do :0

AMF! (And if you know what that means say hey-ay! I’m such a crass bitch sometimes ;))